- Sam Cabral
- BBC – Washington
56 minutes ago
American singer R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison for sexual abuse of children and women.
Last September, a New York jury convicted the 55-year-old R&B artist of racketeering and sex trafficking.
Lawyers for the singer, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, say he will appeal.
Survivors said on Wednesday he had insulted and humiliated them.
Before his sentencing, a handful of women took a stand to confront Kelly with the abuses he had committed over the decades.
A woman, identified only as Angela, likened the singer to the mythical Piper of Hamlin (who charmed children with his pipe and led them into a cave) as mired in evil that increased with each new victim, while others who were not named testified that he broke their spirits.
“I literally wish I might die because of how I felt,” said one of them.
Kelly, who was dressed in a prison uniform and dark glasses, declined to make a private statement.
The judge in the court, Ann Donnelly, said that the famous man used sex as a weapon, forcing his victims to do unspeakable things and causing them incurable diseases.
“Teach them that love is servitude and violence,” she said.
The court heard how Kelly used his stature and influence to lure and sexually abuse women and children over the course of two decades.
Jurors at his six-week trial in Brooklyn heard how he trafficked women between states, with the help of managers, security guards and other members of his entourage.
The court also heard how Kelly illegally obtained papers to marry the singer Alia, when she was 15 in 1994, seven years before the singer died in a plane crash.
The certificate, which was circulated at the time, stated that Aliya was 18 years old. The marriage was annulled months later.
Federal prosecutors had recommended that Kelly be sentenced to more than 25 years in prison, given the gravity of his crimes and “the need to protect the public from other crimes.”
But his lawyers have called for 10 years in prison, the mandatory minimum for a conviction, or less.
They portrayed Kelly as having grown up poor in a home riddled with domestic violence, suffering from sexual abuse from a young age.
Victims’ attorney Gloria Allred says Kelly is “the worst offender”.
Kelly has been detained since federal prosecutors indicted him in New York and Chicago in July 2019.
The three years he spent behind bars were eventful, including being beaten by another inmate in 2020 and a struggle with COVID-19 earlier this year.
The singer faces further legal action in August when he will be tried once more, this time in Chicago, over child pornography and obstruction charges.
He is also due to face sexual assault charges in courts in Illinois and Minnesota.
